GULF REUNION PARTY ENDS IN 2 DROWNINGS

Jessica Seigel and John Lucadamo. Jerry Thomas contributed to this reportCHICAGO TRIBUNE

After the Persian Gulf war, James Nicholson, a Navy medic, told his friends how he dangled from helicopters under enemy fire to rescue wounded soldiers. He came home to Chicago last Saturday after seven months in Saudi Arabia. He was 19 and glad to be alive.

Though he survived the war, he did not survive the celebration.

In a boating accident about 1:30 a.m. Friday that friends who were with him admit was foolish, Nicholson, and a buddy, Daniel Joyce, 20, drowned in frigid Lake Michigan waters off a secluded Evanston beach.

''He spent 7 1/2 months avoiding Scud missiles and he came home to drown,'' his mother, Jacqueline Nicholson, 34, said of her only child.

''I probably could have dealt with it better if I had lost him over there. This is a mystery. I don`t know if the good Lord is testing me.''

About 10:30 p.m. Thursday, the buddies, who knew one another from Evanston Township High School, went to Lighthouse Beach, a secluded stretch of sand behind the Evanston Arts Center at 2603 Sheridan Rd. They brought 1 1/2 cases of beer, one of them said.

''We just went out to celebrate and got carried away,'' said Randolph Fantozzi, 20, who knew Nicholson from the Evanston Township Class of 1989.

''We had a few beers and found a boat,'' he said.

After drinking for several hours, they ''borrowed'' two boats from a nearby back yard and set into the water, Fantozzi said, to ''watch the fish jump up.''

But that`s not what happened. According to accounts from two of the survivors, they all paddled out, lost their balance, repeatedly fell into the lake and then lost their paddles.

''We all just kept falling in and out of the water,'' Fantozzi said.

''And we kept drifting out and it was hard to paddle. We couldn`t do anything.''

''I was very lucky,'' said survivor Raymond Bittinger, 19, an exercise trainer from Chicago who was a newcomer to the group of buddies.

The drownings occurred when Fantozzi and Nicholson tried to swim from their boat to the second boat, which was closer to shore and less filled with water.

Though he is a strong swimmer, Nicholson succumbed in the 41-degree waters.

The three survivors, who included Lloyd Walder, 22, managed to paddle by hand back to the breakwater and dragged themselves ashore.

The young men summoned help by banging on the door of a woman they know who lives at the lake, Bittinger said.

Evanston police later cited the three survivors for underage drinking and being on a beach after closing. Police said they had not determined whether there would be other charges.

With a helicopter and boat, the U.S. Coast Guard searched for about two hours in the dark, but stopped at 3:30 a.m. when fog lowered visibility, authorities said.

The renewed search for the bodies by 40 Fire Department divers was called off Friday morning because of an oncoming storm. The search will resume when the weather clears, authorities said.

At lakeside during the search, one of Daniel Joyce`s brothers, James, lamented the accident.

''It`s just tragic,'' he said. ''He (Daniel) was always trying to help people. He used bad judgment in this case.''

A family friend remembered warning Nicholson.

''The last words I said to him is, `Now that the gulf war`s over don`t do anything stupid,''` said Alfonzo Brown, who was thinking of his own experience as a Vietnam veteran. ''I told him the most dangerous time is now when you`re back, and you think you survived the war so you can survive anything. War puts your mind on the back burner.''